Given the economic way he shoots and scripts his projects, Christopher Nolan doesn’t bother with deleted scenes. The Dark Knight Rises was a whopping 2 hours and 45 minutes, so it is hard to believe that anything was left on the cutting room floor. However, Nuke the Fridge hears different. Their sources say that there will be a director’s cut on the Dark Knight Rises Blu-ray that includes Bane’s origin and more screentime for Ra’s Al Ghul. This would reportedly add about 30 minutes to the film, pushing it well over three hours.

Treat this as a rumor for now, but it would coincide with previous talk about possible deleted scenes. Hit the jump for more.

“The thing that you should have seen during that sequence is [Bane] being injured in his youth. So one of the fundamental things about his costume is that he has this scar from the back injury. Even if he hasn’t got the bulletproof vest on, he still has to wear the waist belt and the braces. In that scene in the prison, where he’s learning to fight the same way Batman learned to fight, he’s wearing an early version of his waist belt. It’s showing support, but it’s not the finished one he eventually wears. He’s also wearing an early version of his gas mask, all glued together… If you look at the film, unless they’ve cut it—and I’m sure they haven’t—there’s a whole early section for Tom Hardy where he’s fighting and being taunted by people. He’s got chains on him, and he’s standing on a wooden thing while people are attacking him. And in that scene, he’s wearing a much more ragged, primitive version of the mask.”

Nolan is the effective spokesperson of IMAX. One downside to his love of the format is the time limitation, and that 165-minute runtime pushes right up against the limit of what can fit on 70mm IMAX prints. So there is a plausible reason for this to be the one Nolan film that could not fit every scene he wanted.

Just because it could be true doesn’t mean it is. But there is an opening for your fantasies of more Nolan-directed Batman footage. I certainly wouldn’t say no to more Tom Hardy and Liam Neeson.

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